WWE: 10 Things Today's Wrestling Fans Wouldn't Understand About The 90s

7. When There Weren't Always Pay-Per-Views Every Month

The WWE Network has ushered in a new era for WWE because they're shying away from the term "Pay-Per-View" that has been prevalent since the late 1980s. Vince McMahon received a lot of praise in the business world as the king of PPVs because of how successful WWE was in producing those shows. The big four PPVs were known as WrestleMania (started in 1985), Survivor Series (1987), SummerSlam (1988) and the Royal Rumble, which first aired on TV in 1988 and then became a regular PPV event in 1989. What was great about having the four big PPVs per year was WWE had plenty of time to build them up. Remember the point about having squash matches on TV shows? That was because they used those matches to make the PPV performers look like important players while slowly building up to the massive PPV matches. In 1993, WWE introduced King of the Ring in June to bridge the gap between WrestleMania and SummerSlam as the fifth annual PPV. In May 1995, WWE started doing monthly PPVs by introducing the "In Your House" series of shows. For two years, they were two hour shows. In September of 1997 at Ground Zero, every PPV that followed was at least three hours long. It should be noted too that a big reason for PPVs taking place and for more of them being added was because of pressure from NWA/WCW. They were competing for viewers. There were times when WCW was offering shows for free on cable, so WWE really had to go all out because they were asking fans to pay for their shows.